Black Residents

The African American room at the Pratt library has an immense amount of information about Pennsylvania Avenue. I stayed there for about two hours on Saturday and came across about two-dozen news articles. Many of which were from old out of print papers like The Evening Sun. Over the next week or so I will post the visible articles to the site so that everyone can see what the Avenue looked like before its dramatic decline.
The City Paper article I posted touched on the early ethnicities that frequented Pennsylvania Avenue before the black population arrived. It also sites the late Alvin K. Brunson, former director of exhibits and programs for the Center for Cultural Education. (We will be using this center as a source in the near future)
Brunson credits the rise of the suburbs and the migration of blacks to West Baltimore from downtown as the primary reason for racial changes on Pennsylvania Avenue. African Americans studied the advancement of other ethnicities and implemented their community building strategies. Brunson states “Pennsylvania Avenue did not become a predominately Black community until the 1920s. With the rise in Black churches, schools, night clubs, restaurants, hotels, barbers shops, beauty salons, insurance companies, banks, newspapers and a thriving medical facility named Provident Hospital, located at 1514 Division Street, Pennsylvania Avenue became a thriving community. Because Baltimore at that time was a segregated city, many Black residents considered Pennsylvania Avenue “a City within a City.”
In 1920, the census showed that 90 percent of Baltimore’s Black population lived along Pennsylvania Avenue. “The Avenue,” as it is affectionately known, was in the heart of the Black community. It played the most important role in the development of Black culture in Baltimore. Day and night, this street was always crowded. It was where Blacks attended school, worked, and shopped. At night, this street became a place where people hung out, listened to live music, ate, danced and spent their money fulfilling their wants and desires”.

Some of the more popular venues were…

1) The Royal
2) Gamby’s
3) Sphinx Club
4) Club Casino
5) Ike Dixon’s Comedy Club

Many of these once Jewish or white owned businesses were successful, but The Royal was by far the most popular of them all. Next week were going to dedicate a whole blog to the Royal Theater.